Today, everyone knows who Serena and Venus Williams are. But in 2000, if you weren’t already a regular fan of tennis, you probably didn’t know them. The 2000 Olympics in Sydney really marked the beginning of their rockstar status in the sport. It was such a great story line–loving sisters, fierce rivals during singles matches, and unstoppable teammates in doubles competitions. They became the best in the world, and thus began what became over a decade of dominance in women’s tennis.

RECAP VIDEO:

And #1: 2012 Olympics, London: Women’s Soccer Final

I know the rest of the world doesn’t understand this, but Americans for the most part, just don’t care about soccer. Moreover, they don’t really care about women’s team sports either. If there has ever been anything that has been an exception to those rules, it would be the 2012 Women’s Soccer team. Our men’s team usually doesn’t go particularly far in international soccer competitions, but our women have been dominant for years. For me at least, I didn’t really appreciate this fact until the 2012 Olympics. I remember thinking, “Wait…this is their THIRD consecutive gold medal?? Why are we only just now talking about this in the main stream?” The finals match against Japan was made more dramatic by the fact that the Japanese women had just bested this U.S. team the year prior in the World Cup finals. But this time, the American ladies came out on top. They were fast, their passes were clean and accurate, and “ridiculous” is the only adjective I can come up with to describe the acrobatic saves by star goal keeper, Hope Solo. I became a superfan of these ladies in 2012 and remained so as they continued their savage grudge match with Japan in a World Cup victory in 2015.